Randy Myers of the Contra Costa Times takes a deep look at Dogtown Redemption:

"Amir Soltani was shocked by what he saw on a daily basis outside his brother's West Oakland apartment. About 10 years ago the fledgling filmmaker noted a seemingly endless stream of people sifting through trash for cans, bottles and other redeemable items that the gatherers would then haul blocks away to a recycling center.

Soltani, a London-born human rights advocate who has worked in Afghanistan and lived in Iran, eventually grabbed his video camera and headed over to Alliance Metals. "You go into that recycling center and it was like a Fellini set," he recalls. "This was marginal America and it was also unbelievably creative ... There's a lot of entrepreneurship that's involved with poverty because people are having to solve their own health issues and their transportation issues."